House Guest of the Ghost Variety
by mydoctortennant
Summary: Written for the kink meme on ag fics Arthur moves into a new home to only to find he has a tea making ghost... Arthur/Gwen, mentions of murder. Being Humanesque.


When Arthur first moved in he had noticed these little things. Things like his magazines being neatly piled when they'd been a mess the night before after he'd tripped over them. Or the time when all the remotes for his various players had all be aligned on the coffee table. Next he noticed random cups of tea appearing on the side just how he liked it.

He'd never touched them, just washed the contents away down the sink and made himself a fresh one. He didn't know where they were coming from and when you're the sole heir of one of the biggest corporations in the world you worry about things like people poisoning your drinks. Even if you have run away from it all to hide out in a crappy Bristolian house that is actually a lot nicer on the inside than it looks.

Even if it does appear to be haunted.

-

He met Gwen on a rainy Tuesday morning. He'd been having a really hot shower. He stood in his bath, because the place wasn't big enough to have a separate tub and shower so the two were conjoined. With his eyes closed he opened the shower curtain and reached around for a towel only to find it a lot closer than he'd expected.

"You take a hell of a long time to shower," a female voice commented not so far from him. He jerked back, slipping over in the tub and landing awkwardly against the taps. He hissed out in pain grabbing at the towel and quickly rubbing at his eyes.

He doesn't realise in his haste that he was showing her everything.

"Who the _hell_ are you? Get the _hell_ out of _my_ house!" he shouted from where he was indignantly sprawled.

"I think you'll find it's _my_ house. And who the hell are _you_?" she retorted. He squinted his eyes at her, it sure as hell wasn't her house. He paid rent. He wasn't paying for somebody else to live there!

"I asked first!"

"Oh, you're a big boy now aren't you?" she said sarcastically before she let her eyes wonder down. She smirked and raised an eyebrow, "Then again-"

Arthur clambered up, readjusting himself so he was wrapped in the towel the intruder had given him, "I'm Arthur."

"Gwen," she offered, narrowing her eyes at him, "Now why are you in my shower?"

"It's _my_ shower!" Arthur protested, he stepped over the edge of the bath to give himself a firmer ground to stand on.

"Like hell it is! This is my house! _I_ live here, what are _you_ doing here?"

"I live here! I pay rent to a Mr DuLac. Weird chap but gives me the house at a discounted rent," he gave a nonchalant shrug, "Don't know why."

"Why is Lance renting the place? _We_ still live here!"

"Maybe it's his way of telling you you're dumped," her jaw dropped, appalled and offended by any such accusation.

"We're getting married!" she exclaimed in her defence, raising up her hand to showcase an engagement ring.

"Not any more. Now get the fuck out of my house!"

"No."

-

Guinevere Leodegrance had died on the 14th May 2009. Her fiancé Lance DuLac had moved out and had rented the house out to three different couples before Arthur had come along.

Each of them had been driven away by the weird happenings in the house but not Arthur.

He actually spoke to her. He found out that she had realised something was wrong when the second couple had moved in six months ago. They complained about a weird energy and an unwelcoming feeling as well as the juddering tap in the kitchen. Lance had come to fix it on Arthur's tenant demand whilst the tenant in question had been at work.

He'd returned to a distressed Gwen and a lot of broken crockery and spilt milk. Arthur had learned incredibly quickly that ghosts didn't like spilt milk jokes when they had just found out the reason they were dead was because their _devoted_ fiancé had pushed them down the stairs.

On auto-pilot Arthur had made both of them a cup of tea; "I can't drink that," Gwen had said to him.

He nodded, "I know, but when I'm feeling down I just like to feel the warmth beneath my fingers. It calms me down. Thought it might do the same for you."

"Thanks, Arthur."

-

"Arthur! You _have_ to get up!" Gwen shouted in his ear, poking his arm, bare chest - and when that didn't work - cheek.

"No, go away," he batted her hand away and rolled over. She huffed in distress and pulled the duvet clean off of him, no regard for any sort of his modesty. Luckily for him he had taken to wearing boxers in his sleep since learning of Gwen's presence.

"But I made you a cup of tea and Lance just let himself in downstairs."

"Why?"

"I don't know, that's why you have to get up!"

"Hello? Arthur?" on hearing the footsteps coming up the stairs Gwen flinched and before Arthur could grab a firm hold of her she disappeared, "Hi," Lance greeted, smirk on his face, "I thought I heard a woman up here."

"No, just me," Arthur replied coldly. He hadn't seen Lance since they'd discovered the truth about Gwen's death and he couldn't bring himself to be nice to the murderous bastard.

He had had no reason to be there other than to do a routine check on the house and make sure all the plumbing work he had done was still working. A little warning would have been nice. He'd soon disappeared after Arthur had refused to offer him any form of refreshment and fobbed him off with the excuse of having to ready himself for a day of work – despite not having to go anywhere.

Arthur found Gwen afterwards cowering in a corner of the kitchen behind the fridge so Lance couldn't see her when he left. He could see tear tracks down her cheeks and she was curled into such a tight ball he thought he'd be unable to penetrate it.

"He's gone," he said standing in the doorway should Lance decide to come back suddenl for another unthoughtout reason.

"I know," she mumbled in reply, cuddling her knees to her chest.

"You can come out now," he offered with a sincere smile on his face, tilting his head to one side.

"I know."

"Are you going to?"

"No."

Arthur decided that if he couldn't win he would join her. He sat down on the tiled floor - that was gleaming thanks to Gwen's need for cleanliness - next to her and placed his arm around her shoulders, "He can't hurt you any more."

"Yeah, I'm already dead," she uttered dejectedly, looking down at her knees that were dotted with tear stains.

"I won't let him," a small smile crept onto Gwen's face. Arthur leant down slightly to press a reassuring kiss to her cheek as Gwen turned her head to press a thankful one to his, "I'm sorry," Arthur said, pulling away from her and looking at the floor, cheeks tinged red.

"It's okay," Gwen looked straight ahead of her at the side of the fridge, "What did it feel like?"

"Like kissing someone who'd just come in from the cold," Arthur admitted looking back towards her, "Kinda tingly. Did you feel it?"

"I felt something, yeah," she smiled and turned back to look at him.

He caught eye contact with her and held it for as long as he dared before his brain forced him to look at her lips and back again only to see her doing the same thing. With uncertainty coursing through him as he slowly moved towards her again, only to be met half way.

Her lips were cold against his own yet he didn't care. The chill of her tongue against his as they both moved to take the kiss further had surprised him but it wasn't an unpleasant feeling, strange to say the least but she was a ghost, what did he expect. It didn't even phase him that technically she was dead, because of all the women he had ever met, she was the one who seemed the most alive.


End file.
